


Soror Verto

by Bridie_Brackenhoe



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Bodyswap, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-11-03 19:39:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17883941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bridie_Brackenhoe/pseuds/Bridie_Brackenhoe
Summary: One of the problems with having a grave filled with earth that dates from Biblical times which is capable of resurrecting the dead in your front garden-cum-graveyard is that the details of exactly how it works are a little sketchy....Chapter 7 (will it ever end??) now up. (26-3-19)





	1. Cain Pit Mechanics 101

**Author's Note:**

> This might legit be the daftest thing I've ever written but don't care. Fairly tame so far. It's probably going to get weird.
> 
> For the bodyswap prompt on together-as-sisters.
> 
> Yes. I went there.

One of the problems with having a grave filled with earth that dates from Biblical times which is capable of resurrecting the dead in your front garden-cum-graveyard is that the details of exactly how it works are a little sketchy. It's obviously very old and even when it was new, it didn't come with an instruction booklet, a warranty and a disclaimer that, should it go wrong, Cain cannot be held liable in any legal sense. 

For Zelda, who is the Spellman family's primary user and who doesn't read instruction booklets anyway, it's always been straightforward: kill Hilda, bury Hilda in said plot, plot does its magic thing, Hilda is miraculously returned to life to make tea and jam and do all those Hilda things she's so good at. The mechanics of the whole process have never really been a concern; it's rather like the washing machine or the mystery that is electricity; it just works and no further questioning of the subject is warranted.

Of course, the problem with washing machines, and electricity, and magical ressurecting gravesites is that eventually something will go tremendously, hideously wrong and on one Saturday afternoon, it does.

The washing machine is old, to be fair, and when it stops spinning and makes a noise not unlike a dying banshee, it draws Hilda, Zelda and Ambrose to the laundry room because there is a small chance that it is in fact a dying banshee. Ambrose comes armed. 

The water and soap covering the floor confirm Hilda's less spectral explanation which is that "It's buggered." She tiptoes across the sodden ground and opens its door, sending out a huge cloud of smoke. 

"Well, it's given us a good innings." Zelda rolls up the sleeves on her blouse and starts handing dripping clothes to Hilda, who sends Ambrose to swap his baseball bat for the mop and bucket. 

It's just as he's returning that there is a bang, an odd sizzling sound, and the lights flicker and die. He drops the cleaning supplies, belts down the hall. 

Zelda and Hilda are sprawled on the laundry room floor. Zelda is sitting up against the dryer, Ambrose's sopping wet AC/DC shirt gripped in her hands so tightly she's ripped it. Her eyes are open. Hilda is face down which is a small mercy. Zaps of electricity spark through the puddle of water. 

The lights aren't the only things that are dead at the Spellman mortuary. 

"Oh, shit," says Ambrose. 

It is the early hours of Sunday morning by time he's finished burying both of them. He remembers Hilda trudging up this very same driveway, covered in mud more times than he can remember, with myriad wounds in varying stages of healing. What he can't remember is there ever being two bodies in the pit at once. He wants to stay up to make sure that it has worked and that they are alive, if not necessarily well, but exhaustion eventually wins out. He dozes off on the living room couch next to the window overlooking the graveyard. 

As Ambrose sleeps, the Cain pit wakes. Consciousness seeps through the earth, back into the two lifeless corpses within it. Synapses begin to fire, brains crackle with the same electricity that shut them down in the first place. Hearts give one pump, then two, pushing sluggish blood through collapsed veins. The lungs hold fire; in the amniotic soil of the pit, breathing is impossible until the surface is broken. Fingers twitch, hands claw, dig and eventually not one, but two heads emerge, gasping at the night air. Hilda turns to look at Zelda and Zelda looks at Hilda and their screams alone are loud enough to wake the rest of the dead.

They certainly wake Ambrose, rather abruptly, and he falls off the sofa. Through the window, he sees his aunts sitting on top of their temporary grave and attributes the horrendous caterwauling to the shock of being resurrected. But they're alive at least and he offers a silent prayer of thanks to the Dark Lord, and takes off at a sprint to make sure they're okay. 

His first inkling that it might not have gone quite to plan is when Hilda catches sight of him and snaps "Ambrose, what have you done?!" and it's Hilda's _voice_ , but it's not her usual British chirping. Instead, his plump, affable aunt is berating him in Zelda's clipped, transatlantic vowels and that's not right. He skids to a halt, little tendrils of panic wrapping themselves around his neck. 

His second inkling is when he sees Zelda sitting, legs askew, staring at her muddy hands with a look of complete bewilderment. Zelda doesn't do bewilderment and certainly never has anything askew. Not when it makes her look so much like Hil... 

"Ambrose!" Hilda barks, by way of 1940s noir. 

"Oh, shit," says Ambrose.


	2. What We Need is a Big Book

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody keep calm... Zelda has a book.... They'll be right as rain by twilight....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's still daft, but I hope it makes you smile even just a little bit. 
> 
> Thank you for the comments and kudos. 💗

Zelda sits across the kitchen table from… herself.  
Her face, now under Hilda's control, is contorting; she’s running her tongue over her teeth, grimacing and pouting, grimacing and pouting, grimacing and…  
“Hilda!” Hilda’s voice in her own accent. “For Satan’s sake, stop that.”  
That face, her own muddied face, stares back at her with Hilda’s chastened expression. For as many weird things that Zelda has seen in her long life, it turns out that sitting at the kitchen table with her sister, is the zenith of weirdness. She has only ever properly seen her own face in a mirror and this is just how she felt when she first saw herself in a photograph, and then in those jerky home videos Hilda had insisted on making in the 1980s, but magnified ten fold and with added superbly-repressed panic. She seems oddly… lopsided and, as Hilda’s vision is much sharper than her own, she’s picking up wrinkles and little sags she didn’t know she had. She looks away, taps Hilda’s fingers on the kitchen table.  
“Sorry,” Zelda’s voice in Hilda’s accent. “New teeth.”  
Zelda knows the feeling. New everything. 

The journey from the Cain pit to the house had been an exercise in falling down. If Zelda learned nothing else today, other than to stay away from dodgy electrical equipment while standing in pools of highly conductive liquid, it was that when a consciousness is transferred into a new body, which alone is disconcerting, the first monumental obstacle to get over is the change in the centre of gravity. Hilda is a good couple of inches shorter than Zelda and to say she’s proportioned differently is an understatement. Standing up alone took a good ten minutes. She did at least try, unlike Hilda who hugged the ground, mumbling “This is not happening…” with her eyes closed. 

It's like driving a strange car with the steering wheel on the opposite side, on the wrong side of the road in a tornado. Major muscles respond, but the amount of effort required to move them is a learning curve so steep that a few times, she’s driven the car off it and ended up face down. Too little and she twitches ineffectually, too much and she’s accidentally smacking Ambrose in the mouth and then she’s lost control of a leg and down she goes again. Eventually Ambrose had given up on getting them both back to the house at the same time and had half supported, half carried Zelda while Hilda had crawled after them, yelling “I can’t stand up!” 

They had made it to the kitchen where Ambrose had deposited them in the chairs they currently occupied and told them not to move. He needn’t have worried as the amount of coordination and effort to do otherwise was beyond them at that point and any movement makes them dizzy and lightheaded. Across the table, Hilda is steadfast straight and stock still; the vertigo from being in Zelda’s body is making her nauseous and whatever it was Zelda had for dinner last night is threatening to make a reappearance, even though that was probably just a coffee. Now, Zelda is itching from the mud on her skin and the way that Hilda’s dress is still sticking to her, but she refuses to clean herself, or Hilda’s self, or whomever’s self it is, until she can lie in her own bath, in her own body and try to forget this whole debacle. 

“I’ve got it!” Ambrose shouts somewhere above them and he thunders down the stairs, skids into the kitchen. The “it” is a book, Abel Onyx’s Domestic Applycation of Remedial Dyvinations for Accidental Maiming and Transfigurations and there’s enough dust dislodged from its ornate leather cover to choke a duck when he flips it open to the Indexe. It’s a big book. It has to be to fit the title on the front.  
Zelda sits up as best she can. She’s never found a bodily mishap that Abel Onyx couldn’t fix.  
“Right, what do we have…” Ambrose plants a hopeful finger at the top of the list and begins to read. “Accidental removal of a limb…?”  
Zelda, sitting right in front of him, limbs intact, glares at him with a ferocity he knows Hilda was not capable of when she had that face and this is like the worst trip he has ever had. “No, obviously not… “ He moves his finger down a few entries. “Bringing about the features of a creature…?”  
“Human or otherwise?” Zelda asks. He makes a note of the page number, flips to it.  
“Ah, otherwise…”  
“Then, no..”  
Back to the Indexe.  
“Creation of multiple personalities?” He shrugs, pulls a “could be?” face. Zelda sighs, shakes her head. “Destruction and/or removal of a vital organ?”  
“No”  
“Growing of breasts?”  
Zelda looks down.  
“Not in that sense.”  
Ambrose runs his finger down the page, no, no, noing to himself. His finger slows as he reaches the bottom of the page; he runs out of maimings and transfigurations and he looks up slowly.  
“It would seem that Abel Onyx was unable to remedy our…. particular issue.”  
Hilda lets out a small sob.  
Zelda grits Hilda’s teeth.  
“Right! Fine!” She stands in an attempt at a dramatic flounce, hits full stretch earlier then she’s expecting, her stomach roils and she sits down again with an undignified thump. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, her mind racing, her skin itching.  
First things first.  
“Right, fine...." She starts again, quietly. "If we have to stay like this for the foreseeable future,” she pushes a strand of dirty, blonde hair out of her eyes with as much savoir faire as she can muster, “we might as well get cleaned up.”  
Hilda lets out another sob.


	3. Impracticalities and the Modern Witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First things first, shower, clothes, coping mechanism...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're still here, I salute you
> 
> I can't thank you enough for the kudos and comments. They, and this daft little tale, are helping me through a rough patch and I really do appreciate every one. 💗

Zelda stands in front of her mirror, clean and damp, and she is starting to understand why everyone is always hugging Hilda. She feels... nice. Sure, her knees are a bit dodgy and there are wobbly bits where she's not used to having wobbly bits, but overall being Hilda is not an unpleasant sensation. She is finding that the whole body takes a bit more maneuvering, and that makes her a little clumsy; she's going to have a fair few bruises on her bum and hips but she is fascinated by the way those hips move, so different to her previous model. She just needs practice, but if she stays in front of the mirror a bit longer than is warranted, perfecting her sashay, she is never going to admit it. She's definitely not going to admit to cupping and smooshing her new breasts, which has bugger all to do with being graceful, it just feels good, but when there's a knock at the door, she's so startled she practically has to be scraped off the ceiling. 

"You'll need these." A berobed Hilda refuses to look at her, pushes underwear through the tiny crack in Zelda has allowed. "Do you need a dress or..."

"No, thank you," she drawls. "I wouldn't be seen dead in your clothing. Again."

She closes the door, wonders why she'd been so reticent to let Hilda see her naked.

Back in the safety of her own room, Hilda is actually thankful for not seeing Zelda naked because that might have tipped her over the edge. Satan knows what she was doing in there but from what she could see, she was blushing. 

The underwear Zelda has given her in return looks flimsy and impractical and it takes her a good few minutes to work out which way the knickers are supposed to go. The bra is much prettier than any of her own but clearly far less structurally sound. Lace. Thin straps. She dresses slowly and carefully, out of sight of the mirror because she hasn't quite built up to that yet. She'd undressed with her eyes closed and studied the ceiling over her shower so hard she could have redrawn every crack and blemish from memory. 

Taking a deep breath, she gingerly makes for downstairs. It's all making her head hurt and her stomach still hasn't stopped gurgling. She hasn't felt this unwell since 1972. 

In all the time that Ambrose has resided under the same roof as his Aunt Zelda, not once has he ever seen her less than perfectly coiffed. She comes down to sup every morning, hair in a perfect Hollywood wave, clothes immaculate, everything laced good and straight. Even when she’s going to bed, she’s a silky vision of put-togetherness. If he’d never seen her in those bed clothes, he could absolutely believe that she went to her room and slept propped up in a corner. She doesn’t do bewilderment, she doesn’t do askew and she doesn’t do anything other than full-on groomed, which is why it’s such a shock when she, no, wait, when _Hilda_ reappears. 

The sleeves of her loose pink cardigan are still a bit too long even for Zelda's arms and she no longer fills out her flowery dress quite as well. Her hair had been a right carry on for her to wash because there's just so bloody much of it, and it's still damp and curling around her shoulders in gentle waves, more flower child than femme fatale. The difference is unnerving. Hilda has managed the impossible; she’s made Zelda soft. He’d hug this Zelda. In fact, he does just that, because this Zelda is still Hilda and she looks tired, pale, and traumatized, which is understandable considering the morning they’ve all had.

“Are you okay?” 

She nods but he's not convinced. 

“Getting used to it. Feel quite sick though. Shaky…” She flops onto a sofa. The impractical knickers disappear between her bum cheeks. 

When Zelda appears, Hilda gasps. If this is weird for Ambrose, and it is _very_ weird for Ambrose, he can’t imagine what it’s like for them. 

Zelda wasn't kidding about being caught dead in Hilda's clothes. She tugs at the bottom of her fitted jacket, smooths her skirt. 

“I had to make some adjustments." 

Those adjustments have succeeded in containing Hilda's curves in severe black jacquard, but only just. She heads to the coffee table, picks up her cigarettes which has Hilda leaping off the couch far more gracefully than Ambrose would have given her credit for. 

"Don't you dare!!" She snatches the pack away. "Those are my lungs you've got there!" The sudden movement has thrown her, she sits back down far less gracefully, gills green, and Ambrose comes to a realisation. He gives a quick "I'll be right back" gesture and disappears. 

"Can I at least have a drink?" Zelda pouts. At Hilda's reluctant nod, the crystal decanter is brought into play and Zelda has already put away one whisky and is working on her second by the time Ambrose returns and slaps a nicotine patch on Hilda's arm.

"There, that should help."

Then, because there is no situation that cannot be improved with the addition of tea, and because being in the same room as the two of them is giving him the heebies, he slips out again to put the kettle on. 

The whisky burns Zelda's throat; it tastes more intense than she's used to and her head is already deliciously swimmy. She narrows her eyes at Hilda, who has her arms wrapped around her shins, head on her knees. 

"You could have at least have done my hair." 

"I washed it, what more do you want?" The nicotine working its way through Hilda's system is easing her nausea. She could murder a custard cream. Or Zelda. She's not fussy. 

"Well, you could have put on some decent clothes. Go upstairs and change. You can take anything you like from my wa..."

Zelda has obviously never been on the receiving end of one of her own withering looks before. She's not keen to repeat the experience. She shuts up, takes another drink. In the kitchen, the kettle whistles. 

Ambrose brings back a dilemma with the tea and blessed biscuits. 

"I have no intention of this being the situation when Sabrina gets home." Zelda goes for her third drink. "She can't keep a secret to save anyone's life as she's proven time and time again and if this gets out, we'll be the laughing stock of the coven." 

Zelda thinks Hilda asks what the plan is but between the whisky and Hilda's mouthful of ginger nut, she's not sure. Whatever she asked, she knows she can't answer anyway because she's winging this so hard it's making her teeth ache. Instead she takes another burning sip and settles for looking as mysterious as Hilda's face will allow, which isn't very mysterious at all. 

"Oh, you'll see..."

Hilda is not convinced. She's actually a little concerned that the look Zelda's giving her might be symptomatic of an intestinal issue but there's not much she can do about it now so she shoves in a jammy dodger and digs out her impractical knickers from between her bum cheeks. 

They would, no doubt, see.


	4. Preparation Is Key (And So Are Lists.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sisters don their armour...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took a while, sorry. It was hard to shoehorn a bit of drama and conflict in.
> 
> Thank you again for all the feedback. 💗

Hilda made a list.

She scrawled "How to be Zelda" at the top of her dedicated shopping list pad and made bullet points including ① (Pretend to) read obscure newspapers, ② Be devoted to the Dark Lord, ③ Look down on people and roll eyes, ④ Put on accent. She put three exclamations points after number ④.  When Zelda finds her list, she writes "How to be Hilda" underneath it with a single bulletpoint: ① Be a batwit. There are no exclamation points. 

"We don't need lists. I don't like lists." She puts a pile of Hilda's romance novels and her own Satanic Bible on the kitchen counter. Hilda disagrees but she let's it pass, continues making the homecoming meal she makes every Sunday, grounding herself in routine. “We’ve lived with each other for centuries, Hilda, if we can’t pass as each other for a day or two, we don’t deserve to be related.” 

She ignores Hilda's mumble about how that would be nice actually and starts flicking through the titles she's brought down. Queen of Nirvana; Built for Pleasure; Lust Royale, chosen because they seemed to be of least dubious literary value, although looking a Lust Royale's cover, now she's not so sure. 

"Firstly, we'll need to change…”

“Isn’t that what got us into this in the first place?” Hilda huffs, stirring her stew. She's wrapped herself in the armour of her apron, and she has had to tie her hair back because it keeps getting in her way. 

 “Clothes, Hilda. As much as it will pain me..." 

Hilda scowls at her and suddenly Zelda misses her own face. She has done a bit of secret scowling practice in the bathroom but she just managed to look constipated. Hilda’s face, with its soft features and rounded chin, just doesn't have the same spiky malice. No mystery and no malice, Hilda in a nutshell. She had to admit though that Hilda’s curves did look rather fetching in Zelda's adjusted outfit. The jacket nipped in just the right amount, the result being such a pleasing hourglass that Zelda wonders she insists on hiding it under those loose dresses. Her decolletage was impressive too and more than a little distracting. If it actually belonged to Zelda, she'd be showing it off. Amazing what the right support can do. Maybe she would try for a corset at some point…. 

For now she picks the least offensive dress in Hilda's wardrobe, which even then is quite offensive. She has to admit though, it does feel quite freeing once it's on and the cardigan is stupidly comfortable, and smells of Hilda which is an added bonus. Hilda helps her with her makeup as she can't quite seem to get the bright blue eyeshadow on without it looking like she's walked face first into a wall. 

Hilda de-aprons and chooses a plain black dress just as Zelda knew she would, although the odds are a bit stacked as Zelda owns more than her fair share of plain black dresses. 

As Hilda undresses revealing the underwear she'd been given her earlier, Zelda nods approval, seeing herself from new, impossible angles. She's still in very good shape, firm thighs, narrow waist with just a little softness around her lower belly. Not bad at all. Under Hilda's control, her movements are less dramatic, and though she's never thought of Hilda as particularly graceful, she does takes great care to dress. The careful straightening and smoothing of the fabric, the gentle readjustments are so Hilda it hurts. Even the diffident little smile she gives her own reflection after she slides on her stilettos because no matter who is in control, Zelda is a striking woman. It's not going to be easy to fool Sabrina as Hilda is, ironically, quite hard to bury. 

Hilda catches her watching and blushes so hard she nearly sloughs a skin layer. 

"What?” Zelda frowns. “It's me! I'm looking at myself!" 

But she's not entirely sure that's true. 

She sits Hilda down at her dressing table, begins to brush long, red hair. 

" Zelds?“

“Hmm?” she hums around a hairpin she's holding in her mouth. 

“What if...?” Hilda catches, chews a lip. “What if... ?”

Zelda pulls a section of hair out of the way, secures it with the pin, wraps another hank around her antique curling iron. 

“What if we can't change back?” she finishes.

Hilda nods, and the curling iron catches her ear. She hisses in pain, swears with a vehemence and enthusiasm that would shock a drunken demon. 

Zelda sighs. 

“I don't know, Hilda, I really don't.” 

Hilda’s eyes are looking worryingly moist as she holds her scalded ear and her bottom lip is quivering in that way that always made Zelda’s heart hurt. She pulls her favourite string of pearls from her jewelry box and fastens them around Hilda's neck, gently adjusting her hair before admiring her handiwork in the mirror. 

"There," She rests a comforting hand on Hilda's shoulders. "It's good to see you again, Zelda Phiona." Hilda's rounded vowels are unfamiliar in her mouth. 

Hilda sniffs, collects herself and elongates those vowels. 

"And you too, Hildegard Antoinette." 

They lock reflected eyes and though each will later deny it, the spark of panic that passes between them is tangible. It is then quickly suppressed because sparks lead to fires that can raze even the strongest of wills.

 Ambrose starts yelling about showtime. Before they head downstairs, Zelda gives Hilda a hug because it's what Hilda would do and she’ll eviscerate anyone who says otherwise. 

Sabrina knows something is not quite right. Her Aunties are waiting for her in the hallway, which in itself is unusual, but Aunt Hilda is smiling just a little bit too widely, even for her; and Zelda looks like her underwear is riding. Ambrose is hovering on the landing, rubbing an anxious thumb over his lips. They are a tableaux in awkward. Sabrina drops her bag, narrows her eyes at them. Something is not right at all.

"Did someone die?"

Zelda nudges Hilda, who mentally runs through her list, hits bullet point 3 and manages "This is a mortuary, Sabrina, of course someone has died," in a more than passable facsimile of her sister, although in Zelda's opinion, the eye roll is a bit overdone. Hilda straightens herself up, smooths her dress.  "Now stop asking ridiculous questions and give m...." Zelda jabs with an elbow, "Your _Aunt Hilda_ a hug." 

____

____

“Actually, Aunties, it’s not just me…”  On the list of things that Zelda does not want to hear right at this moment, that ranks right up there with "I've dropped the Batibat jar," coming a close second on the heels of "Aunties, I've dropped a spoon". Instead, she's dropping this bombshell and from out of the dark, Faustus Blackwood sweeps in with a curt "Sisters..." 

"Father Blackwood is honoring us with his presence for dinner as he has something he wishes to discuss." Sabrina's smile is nowhere near genuine and Zelda’s list suddenly has a new number one. 

“Oh, shit,” says Ambrose. And Hilda. And Zelda, for that matter, three times no less, one each in French, German and Mandarin.


	5. Awkward Has a Face and It Looks Just Like You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eye communication. Lots of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is nowhere near as long as I'd hoped it was going to be so I've split the scene up. Forgive me. I just didn't want to leave it too long between updates.

“Forgive the intrusion, Sisters. I asked Sabrina if I could accompany her as I have something very important to bring to your attention.”

Blackwood seems to be expecting Zelda to step forward, his eyes are trained on her, waiting for her to invite him in, do that slightly obsequious thing she does. But Zelda is Hilda and that's why Zelda is looking at him like he has just tap-danced in. 

Hilda, who is Zelda, gives her sister another nudge and the eye flick that's the universal signal for "Close your damn mouth and pretend to me, for the love of sweet Be'elzebub, before we get found out."

Hilda shuts her mouth. She forgets the list, including all important number 4, asks if he would like some tea, and it’s all so English it’s excruciating. 

There is silence. Then Ambrose is cringing, Sabrina is confused and Zelda is stepping in to try to put a bandage over the whole sorry mess. 

“Oh, she thinks she’s funny. She’s been doing it all day, pretending to be me.” She pins Hilda with a look that could slice steel. “She _isn't funny_.”

Ambrose just about falls of his perch on the banister because Zelda is not just good at impersonating Hilda, she's positively creepy. She's got the diffident little headbob, the half run to take the Father's cloak, the line of babble. She's hit Mother Hen right on the head, figuratively speaking, although Ambrose wouldn't have put hitting one literally past her either. She’s hanging up the cloak, sweeping Blackwood through into the dining room, inviting him to stay to sup because “Satan knows, I always make far too much for just ourselves and you look positively half starved…”

Blackwood is going along with with her, but his eyes are on Hilda the whole time. Hilda who can read minds. Hilda who suddenly wishes she couldn't read minds and that she’d been blessed with necromancy or divination or that she hadn't been born a witch at all. Anything that would mean she didn't have to see the images contained in that squeaky-haired head. Seeing her sister naked first hand has been traumatic enough for her today, never mind second hand and in positions that would make a Victorian whore throw their hands in the air and disappear into the murky London sunset muttering "filth!"

She has to hang back a good few minutes until her burning face is a few shades less than magenta before joining them at the table.

For as good as Zelda is at being Hilda, and to reiterate, she is terrifyingly good, she does fall short of a few of Hilda's more Hilda-ish qualities. One is mind reading so she has no idea why, when Hilda finally joins them, she looks like she does when she’s been belted over the head with a spade. 

She also lacks Hilda’s ability to cook, although in her defense, Zelda is very, very good at dismembering things. Should she have actually brained that mother hen, she could have had it plucked, butchered and ready for the pot in less time than the poor bugger could have even looked left and right, never mind actually got around to crossing a road. She's terrifying on the business end of a cleaver where subtlety means nothing. But the more refined practices of actually making it edible? Those have always eluded her. She can make toast. Just. And even then, it’s hit and miss.

For Hilda, cooking is just another form of alchemy. Herbs, spices, vegetables, dismembered animals, are just ingredients in a different kind of spell and she had spent the afternoon battling the dysphoria with her new form to create a feast fit for a Spellman. They sit down to stew, fresh bread, Sabrina’s favourite herb dumplings, roasted vegetables from the garden. It is all there, on the dining table waiting. Zelda doesn't need to do anything other than the cutting of the bread and, her being so handy with a knife, that's not going to be a problem at all.

Hilda sits at the head of the table, her back so straight it's making her jaw hurt, and she’s gripping the edge of the table with such force, she might leave imprints in the polished wood. With one particularly pointed glance from her sister, Zelda understands the thunderstruck look on her own face, because the fact that she and the High Priest have been going heels to the False God is breaking news to Hilda.

"So, Sister Zelda, thank you for this meal." Blackwood shakes out his napkin, unaware of the barrage of invisible daggers being hurled over the table. Hilda takes a break from eyestabbing her sibling.

"Well, all the credit goes to my dear sister, Hilda."

Zelda drinks an entire glass of wine straight down to drown her shame, which earns her a side eye from Sabrina, who has noticed the metaphorical sharpened cutlery flying all over the place. She tries to pin Ambrose down with a questioning look of her own, but he is refusing to look at her at all. 

“Well, it looks delicious, Sister Hilda. Shall we say grace?” He bows his head. “Dark Lord, we thank you for the bounty that has been given to us through decay, so we may be nourished to worship your Infernal Soul. Praise Satan.”

They all murmur Praise Satan except for Zelda who is downing her second glass of wine while everyone has their eyes closed. 

This is going to be a long evening.


	6. How to Run in Stilettos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Sabrina finds out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're still here? Yay! 
> 
> It hasn't got any less stupid.

Back when Hilda was a blonde, she wasn't much of a drinker. Back when Zelda was a redhead, she was. 

She still is, but now it's Hilda's intolerant body she's slowly poisoning and it isn't used to the ethylitic onslaught. Frankly, it's giving up at the first wave of a decent Beaujolais, going down with just a hand above the surface. She's getting, as Hilda herself would have put it, pissed as a fart. 

She is also starting to enjoy herself a lot more. The confused side glances from Sabrina are at first annoying, then adorable, because she loves the girl, she really, really does. Ambrose subtly trying to keep her in check by moving the wine bottle away every time she reaches for it? That’s just plain annoying. 

Father Blackwood, whose dealings with the younger Spellman sister have always been fewer and far more clothed than his dalliances with the elder, is wondering why she keeps looking under the table until she stage whispers at the nephew to stop kicking her.  
Judging by the rapidly depleting bottle, it’s a good thing we excommunicated her, he thinks. She clearly has a problem.

"Oi," the real Hilda yelps, "I heard that... I do not..."

Ambrose, who might as well just fashion a mask of his "Dear Satan, stop!" face, slap it on and have a stress induced nap, is shaking his head so vigorously his eyes are rattling.

She stammers: "...believe that you told us the reason for your visit, Father."

"Ah yes.” Blackwood wipes his mouth delicately. “ Well, it concerns the choir music for the upcoming Walpurgisnacht ceremonies."

Hilda, who knows nothing about music beyond the two years of recorder she had to take at the academy, zones out on what he's actually saying. Instead, she concentrates on nodding and interjecting like Zelda would, at appropriate intervals and fending off the obscene images currently rattling around Blackwood's head. He's naming composers but thinking about peeling off her stockings. He's using words like modulation, subharmonics and contralto and thinking copulation, submission and fellatio.  
Music for the choir, her arse. Her own actual arse, not the one that is currently playing out cinematically all over Blackwood's subconscious.

"I think..." Zelda interrupts from the far end of the table. She is starting to slur and she's splashed some of her wine onto the tablecloth where she has gesticulated a bit too forcefully with her glass. Hilda winces, itching to clean it because that's going to stain...  
"we... You.... _You_ should do musical! Everyone loves a musical! Am I right, Sabrina?"

Sabrina is caught off guard with a mouthful of dumpling. 

"I-I'm not sure... Are you okay, aunt Hilda?"

The concern seems to be catching; Father Blackwood gives the actual Hilda a sympathetic look that makes her want to poke him in the eye with his own fingers.

"I'm not sure that's appropriate for such an... important occasion, Sister Hilda..."

Zelda snorts. "Since when have you eve been concerned with appropriate, Fau..ow!"

She’s reaching under the table to rub her shin and swearing, Blackwood is getting ready with his indignant face and pretending to make a move while shoving in a few more mouthfuls because insulted or not, this stew is hell-sent, Sabrina is starting to ask questions of Ambrose, and it’s all getting a little out of control so Hilda pulls on the reins, tries her best to inject some of Zelda's discipline. She slaps her hand down on the table.

"For Satan’s sake, Hilda!" she barks and when everyone and the cutlery jumps, she feels giddy with power. She brushes her hair away from her face, sets herself a little straighter in her chair, takes a deep breath. 

"Get the trifle."

Zelda downs what remains in her glass, stands with the aid of the table and she is undoubtedly swaying. Her words hit their mark though, picked out in gold relief and edged in poison. 

“Get your own bloody trifle. _Zelda_.” 

She wobbles off towards the stairs. Sabrina stands, throws down her napkin and rounds on Hilda with “Why do you always have to do that to her? You’re always so mean to her!” before following her undoubtedly inebriated aunt out of the room with Ambrose on her heels. 

Alone with Blackwood, Hilda will admit to panicking just a little. She’s barely holding it together as is and the anger in Sabrina’s eyes has her tearducts gearing up for action. She tries to snap Zelda firmly in place as he turns back to her. 

“Well, that is unfortunate. I know you said at her excommunication that your sister has her problems....”

"It is unfort.... Hang on! What problems?”

But Blackwood is oblivious. He’s pressing himself up close to her; she can smell his scent rising on the warmth generated by his body, his admittedly rather attractive body, that’s right next to her, he’s right there! and he does not feel entirely unpleasant, in fact he feels really, really good. She closes her eyes, parts her lips, waits for him to initiate something as she has no clue what she’s supposed to be doing right now but she is letting herself be swept along because it feels pretty bloody amazing.

“Let's not waste this time alone. I have been starved, Zelda.”

At her sister’s name, her eyes snap open and she slams on her brakes. He’s not here for her, of course he’s not, he’s here for Zelda. As he reaches for a kiss, she floors the Hilda pedal by mistake and panics.

“You’re still hungry??” She pushes past him, throws a chunk of bread at him, and belts off towards the kitchen, struggling in Zelda's ridiculous heels. “We have trifle!”

She’s trying her best to put the kitchen table between them, he’s sensing a tease, a flirtatious game. She’s sure she’s read about this in one of her novels but she’s also sure the plot did not involve sisters reincarnated into each other’s bodies and a rampant Satanic Priest whose wife had recently died in childbirth. She would bet actual money on that. She stumbles on the stupid stilettos, and Blackwood catches her, breathing heavily, pushing her up against the kitchen counter. Hilda closes her eyes and whimpers.

“Aunt Zelda!” 

Ambrose. 

Dear Sweet Lucifer on a raft. If he'd been wearing armour, it would have been incandescent. Blackwood jumps off her, smooths his hair, has the grace to look embarrassed. Ambrose stands at the kitchen door and he is not pleased. 

“I think Aunt Hilda is in need of your assistance. Upstairs.”

Hilda points unnecessarily to the second floor. "My... Hilda needs me." She slips past Blackwood.

“I'll help the Father out,”says Ambrose, pointedly, as he places himself between the priest and his aunt. 

Sabrina sits on Hilda’s bed with her aunt's head on her knee, stroking blonde curls, while Zelda drowsily professes a distinctly American tinged: "I do love you, you know. I know I don't show it often enough and you think I'm too strict but I do..."  
When Hilda quietly knocks, she gets the full first degree.

"What exactly is going on, Auntie Zee? And don’t try lying to me because I know there’s something not right.” On her knee, Zelda mumbles “You’re the best niece Hilda and I could have asked for…”  
“Why is Aunt Hilda talking like... ?"

The expression on her Aunt Zelda's face and the way she twists her fingers and chews her lip is so very, very Aunt Hilda that when she clears her throat and opens with "Well, Lamb..." Sabrina's eyes widen and her mouth opens in a little "O" of horror.

"Aunt Hilda??"

Hilda nods, close to tears, red hair bobbing. Sabrina looks down, points at the blonde head currently drooling on her skirt.

"So this is..."

Ambrose appears at the door, finishes for her "Auntie Zee."

Hilda flops into a chair, kicks off the stupid high heels. Every one of her new muscles is aching and weak and her eyelids start shutting up shop on their own accord.

"There was an... incident, my love. With the washing machine and the Cain pit and we were hoping to have sorted it out by time you got home..." Hilda babbles out the whole story but she's tired, and she’s drifting off.

“Well, how do we fix it?” Sabrina’s energy is infuriating at this late hour but, after the worst Sunday any Spellman had ever had with the exception of the time Purina Spellman set herself on fire one sunny afternoon in 1652, she’s left with only Ambrose listening. “What are we going to do, Ambrose??”

Ambrose leans against the door frame. 

“Well, dear cousin, this isn’t going to be solved tonight. So with that in mind, I intend to get that Auntie,” he points to Zelda, “into bed, and that Auntie,” a gesture to the sleeping Hilda, “to her own room, or Zelda’s room or whoever’s room it is now, then I intend to crawl into my bed and forget this has happened until the unfortunate moment I wake up and realise it hasn’t all be a bad, bad dream.”

He hoists Hilda and half carries her down the hallway.

“But we have to do something…” Sabrina finishes feebly. 

On her lap, her Aunt Hilda… no, _Zelda_ snores loudly.


	7. An Interlude (2:42 a.m.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyjamas, guilt trips and trifle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and kudos, you're all superb. Enablers, but superb ones.

Zelda wakes in the wee hours. She’s cold despite the blanket that someone has thrown over her, and her head is thumping like a boggart with a bass drum. 

She takes stock: She’s still Hilda so that squishes the tiny white butterfly of hope that this had all been some wine-induced nightmare. She’s still dressed and she’s in Hilda’s room but she can’t remember how she got here. She has a pretty good grasp of the evening’s events up to and including the first course and by first course, she means first bottle. After that, there are what she likes to call snapshots. There were dumplings and musicals. She remembers being annoyed at Ambrose moving the bottle and marginally more Sober Zelda is furious at Drunk Zelda for not letting him do it. And then there was Faustus, oh Satan, Faustus. 

She opens one of Hilda's drawers, finds some soft pyjamas and pulls them on. They smell of Hilda, the real Hilda. Along with the nausea that’s threatening to give her a second look at the few mouthfuls of dumpling she’d managed, a strong sense of what she can only describe as homesickness washes over her. She sits on the edge of the bed, waiting for it to pass and another curious sensation, almost a tickling at the base of her brain begins. She can _feel_ her family. She can sense Ambrose, strong and steady, the flutter of Sabrina and Hilda is as clear as touching a fingertip to a raw nerve. Her eyes fly open. This is not right at all. 

She pads downstairs for glass of water, something, anything, to get the fuzz off her tongue. There's a light on. Hilda is sitting at the kitchen table. She's wearing one of Zelda's negligees under a cocoon of her own dressing gown, dipping a spoon into the trifle, which is half gone. Her face is red and blotchy.

"What do you want?" She licks her spoon. Zelda gestures weakly to the sink. 

“Water." 

“Then get it and go.“ She turns back to her dessert. 

“Hilda...“ She knows she's going to get shot down but she feels she has to try. 

“No. Zelda. Just... Just go away.“ 

Zelda pulls herself up, stalks to the sink. 

"You don't get to tell me what to do. You're not actually me." 

"Clearly!" Remembering that the house has sleeping occupants, she drops her voice to an aggressive whisper. "You know, for someone who's always banging on about the reputation of the family, you certainly played a blinder tonight!"

Zelda sits gingerly down opposite her sister, head still throbbing, and sips the water, hoping fervently her abused digestive system will take it as a peace offering. Hilda has always been quick to blush and Zelda curses under her breath as her cheeks burn. How is she supposed to maintain an air of mysterious superiority with the heat of her actual emotions emblazoned all over her face? 

" I forgot myself... " 

"Too bloody right you did!" Silence. Around them the mortuary creaks and mourns. Zelda sips her water. Hilda dangles her spoon. 

"I didn't realise that you and Blackwood..." 

There's that heaven-forsaken blush again.

"Well, you weren't supposed to know. It's a private matter. If you'd kept out of his head, you'd be none the wiser.”

"He was lit up like a Yule tree the entire time! Even if he wasn't broadcasting on a channels, I can't turn it on and off! I'm not a sodding wireless! You clearly have no idea what's it's like, no idea.”

Zelda has the feeling that, should they stay like this for much longer, she’s going to find out just what it is like. Hilda is warming to her subject.

“It’s just constant noise. Shopping lists, half remembered conversations, worries about jobs and money, dubious sexual acts involving your own sister. You might look like me now but you have no idea what it's like to be me. None.”

Zelda’s temper, short at the best of times, is still very much her own to lose and so she does so, as much as her gippy stomach and thumping head will allow. 

“Get over yourself, Hilda!” she hisses, both for effect and because actual shouting makes lights flash at the edge of her vision. “ _You're_ not the one who has to bang the High Priest because her family, including I might point out, you," a good finger point for emphasis, "is heaven-bent on leading us from the right path!”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure that’s the _actual_ reason. Not because your knickers have been up and down like a yoyo since you turned 16.” Hilda’s sneer is remarkably effective. “Don't be such a bloody martyr.” 

Zelda is a little stunned and takes a moment to recover because she’s still drunk so she’s not batting her A game. She changes tactics, goes from swinging at everything that comes her way to stabbing Hilda’s weak spot.

“You're not the one that has to deal with our niece constantly shredding boundaries and blaming you because you put them up in the first place.”

This has the desired effect. Maximum impact from minimum effort. She hits the raw nerve and Hilda sits down heavily, remembering the angry look Sabrina had given her at dinner, how that had hurt. Zelda can see her lip quiver but curiously she can also physically feel Hilda’s pain both literally and figuratively. 

She ignores it, goes for the home run. 

“You’ve always been more than happy to be the smiley, cuddly one, picking up the pieces after nasty Auntie Zee tries to instill some honest, Satan-forsaken values under this roof. Maybe it will be good for you to grow a spine and see what it’s really like to take charge around here.” 

She might look like Hilda now but Zelda can still spew vitriol like she’d distilled it herself, even half drunk and wearing ridiculous pyjamas. Thank Satan, she still has that. In normal circumstances, she’d be plotting one of her more inventive methods of bumping Hilda off right now but frankly the thought of having to dig a grave with a small Bavarian Oompah band confined within her skull is not appealing. And she would need to bury her; it’s her own body she’d be killing and she'll hopefully be needing that back soon. 

Hilda swipes at a treacherous tear. 

“I can't be you. I don't want to be you. I want to be me again.“

Zelda straightens, already to second base. 

“Don't be such a baby. I don't want you to want to be me, I want you to want to be... Oh, I don't know.” The Oompah band is drowning out rational thought. She could ask Hilda for a remedy but she's prepared to suffer to make a point. It’s time for a good, dramatic exit. “This is all making my head worse. I'm going back to bed.” 

“Fine!“

“Fine!” 

“Fine!”

"Fine! And don't eat that whole thing; all of _my_ clothes are tailored!“ 

She slides over the home plate and flounces upstairs as best her pounding head will let her.


End file.
